When did you realize hospitality was your calling?
When I first started working with my dad at Waikīkī Beach Services, I thought I was just joining the family beach business. It wasn’t until later that I realized hospitality was at the heart of what we did.
One of my favorite things to do was serve as my dad’s second captain on the outrigger canoe. He was an incredible steersman, one of the great canoe surfers of his generation. While he focused on reading the ocean and guiding the canoe safely on the waves, I would talk story with our guests between rides, answer their questions, and share a little about Waikīkī. I remember one guest looking around at Diamond Head, the ocean, and everything happening around them before turning to me and asking, “You get to do this every day? This is your job?”
Growing up here, it’s easy to take those things for granted. Seeing Hawaiʻi through a visitor’s eyes was the moment it clicked for me. What feels ordinary to those of us lucky enough to call Hawaiʻi home is extraordinary to someone experiencing it for the first time. We weren’t just teaching people to surf or taking them on canoe rides. We were sharing a place we love and practicing hoʻokipa in one of the most genuine ways I can imagine.
Every surf lesson, canoe ride, or conversation on the beach becomes part of someone’s lasting memory of Hawaiʻi. Knowing we get to help shape those memories is what made me realize hospitality wasn’t just what we did, but why I loved coming to work.
What part of your personality makes you especially suited for this industry?
I think it’s my sense of humor. I inherited that from my dad, who spent decades running this company. In our business, we make plans and Mother Nature laughs. The surf changes, the wind shifts, it starts raining, or an unexpected swell rolls in. No matter how carefully you’ve planned the day, something is eventually going to remind you that you’re not in control.
Over the years I’ve learned that’s not something to fight. You adapt, laugh, and keep moving. A sense of humor helps me keep that perspective. Weather delays happen, the surf goes flat, we run short on towels, and guests have complaints. All those things are important, but I’ve learned that how I respond matters just as much.
It shapes the way I lead, too. If I make a mistake, I’ll usually be the first one to laugh at myself. That gives other people permission to admit when they’ve made a mistake too. People are a little more comfortable asking questions, working through problems, and moving forward instead of worrying about looking perfect. At the end of the day, we’re selling fun. We’re helping people create memories they’ll carry with them long after they’ve gone home.
What does leadership look like to you behind closed doors?
To me, leadership behind closed doors looks a lot more like conversations than decisions. Those conversations are where people grow, and that’s the part about leadership I care about most. Sometimes it’s celebrating someone’s success, talking through a frustration at work, hearing about a big life change, or encouraging someone to take a chance on an opportunity they don’t think they’re ready for.
Most of our employees are young adults and for many, this is their first real job. That means I’m not just teaching them how to run a beach operation; I’m trying to teach them how to be dependable, communicate well, take pride in their work, and treat people with aloha. To me, that’s the real work of leadership.
I think about this sentiment whenever people who worked for my dad decades ago reach out and share stories about their time at Waikīkī Beach Services and what those years meant to them. It reminds me that people may not remember every detail of the job, but they remember the people they worked with and how they were treated. I hope that forty years from now, some of the people who work with me will tell those same kinds of stories.
What misconception do people have about your role?
I wish I could say I spend most of my day surfing, but the reality is I spend more time in Excel than I do in the ocean. Whenever someone asks me what I do for a living, I can almost see the picture forming in their head: They imagine owning a beach company means my office is a beach chair and my board meetings happen in the lineup. Sometimes that’s true. More often, I’m juggling hotel partnerships, coaching a young employee through their first job, reviewing financials, resolving a guest issue, or solving a problem (or three) I never saw coming that morning.
At the end of the day, my job is about helping the next generation discover why this place matters. Some of my favorite moments are watching a new surf instructor gain confidence, seeing one of our team take out the canoe before sunrise to learn how to steer, or realizing they’ve stopped thinking of this as just a job. They’re proud to call themselves a Beachboy or Beachgirl. It becomes part of who they are.
What legacy do you hope to leave within Hawai‘i’s hospitality community?
Legacy, to me, is about whether we’ve cared for something well enough to leave it stronger for the next generation. The Waikīkī Beachboys lived the spirit of hoʻokipa long before hospitality became an industry. They welcomed people to Waikīkī with generosity, humility, and a genuine love for this place. If we’ve done our job well, those values will still be evident long after I’m gone because another generation of watermen and waterwomen are living them.
Anyone who’s been around Waikīkī for a while knows it has changed. Some of that change has been wonderful, and some of it has come at the expense of the things that made this place special in the first place. I don’t think our job is to pretend it’s still 1955. It’s to make sure the parts worth protecting don’t disappear.
To me, that’s what legacy looks like. It’s seeing the next generation embrace this place, carry these traditions forward, and be proud to call themselves Beachboys and Beachgirls. If that continues long after I’m gone, I’ll feel like we’ve done our part.
